The clinician gripped his arm in rubber-sheathed
fingers, pressed the cold muzzle of a syringe against
him.
Mama.
Pffft. A sharp sting punctured his skin. The
mannequin-stiff fingers relaxed and tears welled up,
slid down his cheeks.
Crybaby, Beto said.
You’ll feel a little under the weather for a couple
days, the nurse told Mama. Like you have the flu.
The nurse chambered a new ampoule into the syringe, then shot his mother in the arm.
Pffft.
Light diffracts through his eyelashes, inks a shadow on the dense curtain of steam. Rigo’s lids flutter open, damp as the wings of a rain-sodden moth.
Whipplebaum materializes in front of Rigo. Knobby-boned and wrinkled, penis hidden by his bearded scrotum.
Rigo sits forward. Water sloshes over the edge of the tub onto the glossy floor tile.
“I thought I’d join you,” Whipplebaum says. He tests the water with one toe, then slides in, ringed by wavelets that spread outward in ever expanding orbits. Whipplebaum stretches out, luxuriating in the tepid pool. His arms and legs float akimbo, bobbing like dead wood. “Ahhh.” He rubs his face with both hands, inhales through his nose. His rib cage swells and his sunken chest breaks the surface of the water, buoyed by the deep, curative breath.
“Dandy way to ease into things, wouldn’t you agree? I can remember the first time I got claded.” Whipplebaum chuckles with offhand nostalgia. “After the shot, my joints ached for a week.”
“I don’t remember what it was like for me,” Rigo says. “I was sort of young at the time.”
Whipplebaum’s head bobs in thought. “That was when South San Jose was first being populated?”
“Right.”
“Rough neighborhood,” Whipplebaum says. “From what I understand, there wasn’t time to socially engineer the community. The emergency relocation camps that had been set up in the latter stages of the ecocaust were overcrowded. To relieve the pressure, immigration into bioremediated ecotectural zones was fast-tracked. The result was a hodgepodge, culturally diverse groups of people thrown together willy-nilly without any social blueprint to integrate them. It must have been extremely difficult for you.”
“A melted pot,” Varda says.
“I guess,” Rigo says. He can remember getting into a lot of fights at school with boys who were different from him. Somebody always had a bone to pick— usually over dumbass shit that was nothing more than an excuse to vent some anger.
“So, rather than overcoming their ethnocentricities,” Whipplebaum says, “people sought refuge in them.”
Rigo can relate to that. Even after twenty-odd years, his mother’s friends and the
tígueres
who’re still around are like a big extended family.
“Things are a bit tamer now, I imagine,” Whipplebaum ventures with a patriarchal smile. Knowing.
“Yeah,” Rigo says. “They’ve cooled down from when I was a kid.”
“Fortunately the Bureau has a fairly good handle on things,” Whipplebaum says. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
By the Bureau, he means BEAN. Rigo can tell that he’s supposed to agree with Whipplebaum’s assessment of the situation, so he does. No sense rocking the boat at this point, exposing the bones of his past. He’s buried that part of his life, put it behind him.
“Mind if I ask how you got that scar?” Whipplebaum says, delicately treading water.
Rigo glances at the keloid gash on his chest. He’s ashamed of the blemish. It’s like an ugly birthmark— one he hides whenever he can, but always seems to surface at the worst possible time.
“It’s something my brother and I did when we were kids,” he explains, “to prove we were tough, you know. A lot of kids did it back then.” They were eight and used a corkscrew heated on the burner of the kitchen stove.
“So you felt compelled to do the same. Peer pressure.”
Rigo shrugs. What can he say? He was just a kid. “Yeah. It made me realize I’m not like the others.”
Whipplebaum arches a dapper brow. “It didn’t make you feel like a
tíguere
?” he says.
“Not really.”
Whipplebaum absently splashes water with his feet, which are angled inward like a seal’s and cross when his ankles clunk together. “Why not?”
Rigo has asked himself the same question a thousand times, has yet to come up with an answer. Is it because he didn’t want to be a part of that life, or because the boys who got into that shit, like Beto, didn’t want him? Sometimes it feels like a little of both. There’s no separating the two.
“I guess I was interested in other things,” he says vaguely, hoping to leave it at that.
“Well,” Whipplebaum muses, “that’s why you’re hopping offworld. The Tiresias project is a rare opportunity. You’ve been given a chance a lot of people from your background never get. You can go on to achieve great things as long as you remember to be a team player.” Whipplebaum gives him a
meaningful
look. “I hope you understand that.”
Rigo nods.
“Good.” Whipplebaum sighs, as if his mind has been put at ease. He dunks his head underwater. Wispy strands of hair trail from his liver-spotted scalp, and then cobweb to his head as soon as he surfaces for air. A stream of water arcs from between his lips, reminiscent of some pigeon-spattered statue from a different era.
THIRTEEN
Rigo gets back to Santa Cruz, expecting to chill with Anthea for the evening. His flight to Tiresias isn’t until morning and he’s looking forward to spending the night with her—sans Josué this time.
He’s excited about the trip, bubbling over with energy. So much so that on the ride home from San Jose International he springs for a dozen red roses at a florist outlet in the pod, preparing for a night of amor.
But nothing clicks. Everything is a little out of sorts, including himself and Varda. Downtown smells wrong. The dusty-olive smell of circuitrees and the roasted-almond scent of umbrella palms no longer put him at ease. Used to be, he’d pod home after a day in the vats and the tension would evaporate in no time. Now it’s as if he’s come back to a different world. He can even taste stuff through his fingertips: apricots when he accidentally bumps into an upper-clade
turista
; mangoes when he takes a chance and steps into an expensive antique shop that’s always been off limits, just to spec how much the reclading has changed him. In the shop, he’s persona grata. The clerk smiles at him like he’s a compatriot. Rigo checks out the merchandise, crap that’s so old it’s new. There’s a blown-glass frog that Anthea would go apeshit over. Too bad it’s light-years beyond what he can afford and would give her hives or the runs or worse.
Even his ap is no longer a comfort zone. The carpet outgasses a vaguely sulfurous odor he’s never noticed before—a combination of rotting eggs and stale cheese. Taking a leak, the toilet stinks of rancid milk.
As he flushes, closes the lid on the smell, it occurs to him that maybe something went haywire with the reclading and he’s only now suffering the aftereffects. Delayed onset.
“You’re bleeding through,” Varda says. Like he’s having a period, or something.
Rigo zips up. “Could you be a little more specific?”
“You’re softwired to Tiresias,” Varda informs him.
Rigo rinses his hands, splashes cold water on his face. “Which means what, exactly?”
“You’re remote-linked to the ecotecture on Tiresias. Streaming direct realtime data with the warm-blooded plants.”
This is news to Rigo. Whipplebaum never said shit about a remote link. Rigo heads into the kitchen for a beer. All he can spec is that his nervous system is now an antenna, picking up and translating biochemical information that’s been digitally coded and electronically transmitted. So, not only does he have biochemical receptors for the Tiresias pherions but also molectric circuitry to convert the wireless signals into polymerase transcription RNA that can be parsed by ribosomes to spit out actual proteins.
“What’s the reason for the remote link?” he asks. It doesn’t make sense. He’ll be there tomorrow. “How come the reclading established a pherion connection ahead of time?”
“I can’t tell,” Varda says with cryptic ambiguity. “Not yet.”
Figures.
There’s no beer in the fridge and nothing else looks appetizing. He shuts the door, straightens, decides to call Anthea. She still has another half hour at work, but maybe he can arrange to meet her early.
“She’s unavailable,” Varda says, after the IA contacts her office. “According to Doug, there’s no way to finger her.”
“Why not?” Rigo says, puzzled. Anthea’s IA is moody, a total killjoy. But even when it’s in a funk, it’s always been courteous enough to forward his messages.
“Her supervisor would like to talk at you,” Varda informs him.
Anthea’s boss, Tissa, comes online. Varda relays her image to Rigo’s living room wallscreen. The woman looks uptight, and Rigo feels a dagger of unease slip into his gut.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“That’s what I want to find out,” Tissa says, anxious and exasperated. “Anthea took off this morning after a couple of BEAN agents talked to her. I haven’t heard from her since.” The woman sits against the front edge of her desk. “I’m wondering if she called you. If you can tell me if she’s okay.”
“I haven’t heard from her,” Rigo says. “I’ve been out of town.”
“Do you have any idea where she might have gone? A friend, relative—or some other person?”
Rigo thinks for a moment. “Her sister, maybe. Malina.” It’s all he can come up with.
“I already checked with her. So has BEAN.”
“Can’t her IA tell you where she is?” Rigo says.
Tissa shakes her head. “Not at the moment. According to her IA, she podded around town for a while. Visited a few parks and shopping centers. That was late this afternoon. Since then, she’s dropped offline.”
That’s hard to believe. Anthea’s about as IADEPENDENT as they come, can’t go to the bathroom without first consulting Doug.
“It’s true,” Varda murmurs in his ear. “Doug hasn’t been in contact with her for over an hour. He’s waiting for her to come online so he can pinprick her location.”
Rigo paces in front of the wallscreen, runs a hand over his scalp. His flitcam whines as it follows him around, trying to stay in front of him. “How come BEAN talked to her in the first place?” he finally asks.
“They’re looking for a child she’s counseling,” Tissa says. “A street kid. That’s all I can say.”
Ibrahim. It’s got to be. The
tiguerito
she was worried about the night they went to the Boardwalk.
“The thing is,” Tissa says, “the kid’s gone, too. Disappeared at about the same time she took off.”
Rigo stops. “You think they’re together?”
“That’s what I thought at first. So did BEAN. But the kid wasn’t with her while she was podding around. Apparently, BEAN’s got sniffers keyed to his pherion-profile, and he didn’t register anywhere in her vicinity. That makes me think he ran on his own and she’s trying to find him.”
More likely, Anthea took the kid and dosed him with antisense blockers. Which is why BEAN lost track of him. Anthea’s crazy that way, determined. Once she gets it into her head to do something, that’s all she wrote. It’s engraved in stone. A new commandment. There’s no reasoning with her, not when she’s in Mother Teresa mode. Rigo’s lost track of the number of times he’s argued with her over this or that, and simply thrown up his hands in surrender because she refused to budge. “Whatever you say, baby,” he’ll tell her or, “Have it your way.” If she doesn’t want Ibrahim to be found, he won’t be. Not anytime soon.
“Why’s BEAN interested in the kid, anyway?” he asks.
Tissa makes a face. “They think he’s some kind of terrorist.”
“Word?”
“They say he’s doped with a dangerous pherion, and if they don’t find him right away thousands of people could suffer.”
“Do you believe them?”
“I don’t know.” Tissa exhales. “Maybe. That’s what’s got me so worried. If she
does
find him, she could be in real danger.”
And not just from the kid, Rigo thinks. He’s more worried about BEAN and what they’ll do to her.
“How can I help?” he asks.
“See if you can find her. Get her to call me. Then, we can at least figure out what to do.”
“Okay,” Rigo says. “I’ll do what I can.”
The screen goes blank. Rigo remains rooted in place for a second, then unfreezes and heads for the door.
“Where are you going?” Varda asks.
Rigo doesn’t say anything, just keeps walking.
Anthea’s ap is across town—a Beach Flats miniarcology that started out life as a concrete parking garage. All-in-one residential, retail, and recreation. Rigo slides on his wraparounds and heads over there on foot to burn off some tension and give himself time to think. He’s pretty sure Anthea’s safehousing the kid while she’s offline. That way, BEAN can’t trace her movement through Doug, backtrack to the place where she stashed him. People drop offline all the time to get away from the Net, sneak a quiet moment alone. Under the circumstances, it might look a little suspicious. But as long as she doesn’t go incognito for too long, they won’t be on her like flies on shit. So in theory, she should turn up soon. Probably someplace ordinary. Meanwhile, it doesn’t hurt to poke around in case he’s wrong.
When he tries to thumb open the door to Anthea’s ap, it says, “Access denied,” in no uncertain terms.
“Great,” Rigo mutters. Either Anthea’s pissed at him, and has deleted his iDNA code from the door’s authorization list, or BEAN has sealed up the ap. Now what? He turns to leave.
“One moment please,” the door chimes.
Rigo stops, waits in the little concrete hall outside her door, lit by a yellow ceiling light. The door seems to be having second thoughts. A second later the lock clicks and it swings open.
“Thanks,” Rigo says, slipping into the ap.
“Your politeness last evening was appreciated,” the door says, closing after him.
Rigo wonders if it’s the same IA or a different one, if all of the doors in the world are a really a single door.
“What are you looking for?” Varda says.
Good question. Rigo takes off his wraparounds. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to find. As far as he can tell, there’s nothing different about the ap. It doesn’t look like she’s been home since leaving for work. The shriveled remains of an orange rind and a piece of toast sit on the kitchen table, not quite broken down by the disassemblers in the surface. The same goes for a coffee cup on the counter. A layer of sticky coffee crumbs covers the bottom of the mug, a loamy sediment. But otherwise it’s been scoured clean.
Rigo’s never been in Anthea’s ap alone. It’s an eerie feeling—like watching her through a lighted window under the cover of darkness. He shouldn’t snoop, invade her privacy like this; but it’s the only option he can think of to spec where she’s gone, or is planning to go.
He doesn’t bother with the kitchen, living room, or bathroom but heads straight for the bedroom. Rigo’s spent a lot of time there, too, but all he’s really seen is the bed and the piezoelectric ceiling panels. He starts with the closet, checks out her collection of sprayons sitting on the shelves. There must be a hundred vials, some of them so aged the labels are faded, unreadable. There are about ten pairs of shoes. Most of them he’s seen on her before—sandals, casual loafers, platforms—but there’s also a few he hasn’t seen her in. Red stiletto-heeled pumps. Japanese slippers. A pair of white ballet shoes, flaccid, crumpled as the shed skin of a snake. On the top shelf, he finds a collection of hats. A wide-brimmed straw hat with a blue ribbon. A dark green felt cap with a pink plastic rose pinned to the front, where the lip curls up in a haut couture sneer. An antique Giants baseball cap from before the team moved to Tokyo.
The dresser is next. Rigo goes through the drawers, starts at the top and works his way down. Not much. Sprayon sock and underwear vials. A few white doily panties and brassieres he can’t remember her wearing and might not even be hers. They look a little small and appear to be hand sewn. They smell of camphor. He fingers the stale fabric, presses the lace against one cheek, brushes his lips across the frilly softness, and then replaces the undergarments before his mounting frustration becomes unbearable. Another drawer contains makeup, overflow from the bathroom. Lip glitter, eyeglow, nail and teeth decals, sculptural hair maché. In the bottom drawer he uncovers a wooden box. Black-lacquered cedar, hand painted with art deco fish, butterflies, and cats. It’s fifteen centimeters long, ten wide, and five high. No hinges. The lid pops off coffin-style.
A white plaster figure, resting on a green silk scarf and playing a red saxophone, grins up at him. The doll is no more than three or four centimeters tall, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The outline of a skeleton has been sketched in black on the exterior of the body. Rigo touches carefully rendered femurs, ribs, vertebrae, and toes, traces the bone-smooth curve of one arm down to the saxophone. Then he replaces the lid, puts back the box, and picks up a white three-ring binder next to it. The binder is stuffed with plastic sheets, cracked and brittle with age. Pressed between the sheets are dried herbs and flowers, most of them little more than faded smudges of dust. The plants are extinct. Species that haven’t been around for maybe a hundred years or more.
“Family hairlooms,” Varda says as Rigo flips through the stiff, crinkly pages. “
Viola purpurea. Mohavea confertiflora. Mimulus aurantiacus
.” Just to name a few. Goosefoot violet. Ghost flower. Orange bush monkeyflower. The IA definitely knows its Latin roots.
Rigo’s never thought of Anthea as a nostalgic. Sensitive, yes. Caring. In touch with her emotions. But not the kind of person who dotes on the past, coddles it like a sick pet or a crippled animal that needs special attention. One of the specimens isn’t a flower, but a feather.
“
Dendroica petechia
,” according to Varda. A yellow warbler. Anthea’s never uttered word one to him about any of this stuff. Kept it a deep, dark secret. Like she’s embarrassed about it, or doesn’t think he’ll understand. He hasn’t found anything that might tell her where she’s gone—only where she’s been.
“You have a call,” Varda says.
“Who is it?”
“Your mother. It’s flagged urgent.”
Something bad has happened to her, he can feel it. She fell, bumped a knee or a hip on a table or chair, and can’t move. She’s locked up, frozen in place.
Rigo returns the scrapbook. “Default interior,” he says as his flitcam hums into the air. He doesn’t want his mother to see where he is. The camera hums close as Varda overlays the realtime image of Anthea’s ap with a file image of Rigo’s living room.
His mother appears onscreen. She’s sitting on the sofa, looking pinched and uncomfortable.
“What is it, Mama?” He searches her expression and the arrangement of her limbs for any sign of trouble. “You okay?” Not that she would tell him if she wasn’t. As far as he can tell, everything looks fine.
“I need you to come over here,” she says.
“When?”
“Right now.”
“What for?”
“What difference does it make? I’m your mother.
When I say I need you to come over, you should respect my wishes. I don’t have to give a reason for everything, do I?”